My experience with Google Code In

Google Code-in is a contest to introduce pre-university students to open source software development. It sounds boring doesn’t it? And a lot of work… I recently joined Google Code In because of my mom forced me to, but I didn’t realize how fun and addicting it is.

When I started, I had no idea what task to choose and how to go about the task. This was a bit of a letdown because I was already reluctant to do this. But then I realized that all the others students would be going through the same feeling as well. This inspired me to pick up an easy task to start with and read up a little. Soon enough, it didn’t even feel like work, and more like a pass time. Even my little brother started helping me with the tasks and reading with me. Each task was for 3-5 days but I was so impatient and excited that I worked at 2 tasks at a time. The best part about Google Code In was the gifts after the completion of 3 tasks. It provided a great incentive to continue working on my task and to not give up. It feels so great when you win a google t-shirt by just sitting at home and having fun. In the end it’s baffling when you realize how much you’ve learnt in a span of few weeks.

One of the tasks required me to interview my teacher about Google Code In and this is what he had to say.

My teacher’s name is Neeraj Khanna. He works with students between the grades 9-12 as a career mentor, helping them start ventures and pick colleges.

Q: how did you get to know about Google Code In?

A: from one of my students doing her masters in CMU.

Q: what is your opinion on Google Code In?

A: I think it is a great experience for teenagers to learn. Teens typically like to be on ttheir laptops so it’s nice that they can do so while being productive and learning at the same time. I also like the fact that it teaches about open source. I like the idea of Google Code In because it helps the community I work with (students).

Q: Have you heard about FOSSASIA?

A: no.

(it is the biggest open soyrce community in the world. It brings people together to create, develop, design and make things with Open Technologies – hardware and software – and share it’s work for the benefit of all. It organizes Open Tech summits, science hack labs, meetups and coding programs with developers, designers and contributors.)